Clare has been a member of the Conservative Party for over sixteen years. She went on the found Conservative Future Women with Home Secretary Theresa May. She was also the founding member of London Conservative Future.

Records collected by police forces reveal a litany of attacks on priests and church ministers and give a rare glimpse of the everyday risks taken by Britain’s clergy.

The crimes, detailed in lists disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, range from scores of low-level assaults, recorded almost routinely, to cases of clergy being stalked by obsessives, beaten in their own churches or bitten by dogs and even, on occasion, humans.

Responses from 25 police forces in England list around 200 attacks on clergy over the past five years.

But because of the way crimes are recorded they give only a snapshot of the threats and violence clergy face and could represent just the tip of an iceberg.

They were collated by the social think-tank Parliament Street in an attempt to highlight the often unseen sacrifice of Christian leaders.

It is calling for the Government to consider recognising attack on members of the clergy as a religiously motivated hate crime, potentially carrying more severe penalties.

More than 600 laptops and 83 iPads belonging to the BBC and its staff have been stolen over a five-year period.

The new figures come after staff complained of an increase in thefts at New Broadcasting House, the BBC’s corporate headquarters in central London.

The BBC said 624 laptops were stolen between 2010 and 2014, along with 109 mobile phones, 98 cameras and 83 iPads.

The most unusual theft was two fire extinguishers, taken in 2011. Over the same five-year period, 34 desktop computers were also stolen, along with seven e-readers and four kettles.

The figures were obtained after a Freedom of Information request by Parliament Street, which describes itself as a “right of centre” think tank.

Parliament Street director Clare said: “These findings show that the BBC must do more to prevent theft and losses at every level of the organisation, taxpayers should not have to pick up the bill for sloppy management of expensive equipment.